Tag Archives: Armageddon

Father’s Day is this weekend, so I loaded up the kids and headed to the local shopping mall.

Photo credit: The Now News

We arrive and hit up the play area so the kiddos can burn off some of their excess energy and build up an appetite for a bite of lunch.

There’s a pile of kids running amok and our little spazzes are terrorizing the small enclosure. Our daughter decides that she’s the only one allowed to play in the Hollow Tree and mouths off to another kid. So Mama Bear makes her appearance and demands an apology be said or we will be heading home post haste.

The apology is made under her breath and in a huff.

Then our young lad feels that he should be driving the car (as most men do) in the play area and bops the little girl sitting in the driver’s seat, in the nose a couple of times before my go-Gadget-go arm is able to stop him.

Another apology session is played out in protest, but it too is made.

The play area starts to get crazy, so I manage to persuade our spawn that it’s lunch time and if we go now, we can get pizza! The most appropriately priced meal in the entire fast food selection in the mall. Three of us can eat for $5, not $15.

We get our food, our daughter gets the job of putting the Parmesan on the slices. She proceeds to empty the entire shaker onto our food…awesome.

Lunch is had, but most of the wee lad ‘s portion, ended up on the ground and the little lady’s pizza ended up topless. I reflect back to my comment about the most appropriately priced meal in the mall.

Now, it’s time to get Daddy’s Father’s Day gift.

We hit up Cole’s and they’ve got a table stacked with books right at the front of the store marked, “Great reads for Dads”, so this makes my life a bit easier. I won’t have to spend too much time scouring the shelves while my monsters start to get bored. As I’m reading the inside leaf of a book, our son takes a swipe at the neighbouring table and a stack of books go sliding off and onto the floor with a loud crash! I pick them up and he decides to launch his bear and soother across the store.

Not exactly as shown.

Time to go.

I collect our daughter, who has planted her bum down in front of the magazine rack and is leafing through a Monster High and a Scooby Doo magazine, pay for the book that I had chosen and as I’m doing so, the boy rips a shelf talker off the checkout display and totally destroys it.

Good grief….

I hand the pieces to the cashier, apologize and make like the wind and break.
We head to Old Navy as fast as our daughter’s legs will move and as I’m looking for Daddy’s size, the lad pulls a stack of jeans off the shelf and onto himself. Our daughter is running around the racks playing hide and seek and laughing maniacally while the other shopper’s deke out of her way. I pick up the stack, grab a couple pairs of shorts that may or may not be the right size, and B-Line it for the checkout.

Last stop, card store.

We race to the other side of the mall and find the Father’s Day card section.
I manoeuvre the stroller so that it’s right in the middle of the aisle, and to my delight, little guy can reach both sides.

Hmmm…which side to choose? The highly breakable side containing ceramic and glass ornaments, or the rack of cards. I choose the latter. Possibly the safest (and cheapest) choice if Armageddon ensues.

I must say, that when it comes to card shopping, I make really good choices and can do so quite quickly. But not as fast as our son, who had now pulled several cards out and is on the verge of destroying them. I pry the wee lass away from her Show & Tell of the “sound” cards to the fellow patrons and we get through the checkout without too much trouble. Only a few items grabbed and replaced.

It’s now nap time as the Spazzometer starts to go off!

Screaming through the mall, past the play area, where the volume increases because we don’t stop, we get back to the van.

Little Dude doesn’t want to get into his seat. He protests by performing his best impression of a 2×4, and won’t bend in the middle so I can click him into his seat belt. He slides down the seat and as I hoist him back in, I bonk his head into the ceiling of the van causing even more yelling and crying.

Spectacular.

When he takes a breath and relaxes, I am able to get him restrained in his moment of weakness.

The 15 minute drive home feels like half an hour from the screaming going on. But our daughter merrily sings along to the radio, completely tuning out her brother.
We get home, put the lad in his bed, I finally sit down for a minute and….